A Betraying Realization
by Partners In Fanfic
Summary: It was in the nightmares that plagued him every night that Patrick Jane realized betrayal was his only choice. He is many things, but a killer he is not.


**Disclaimer**: **Don't own the Mentalist. Shame though. A real shame... -sigh-**

-Oh my god...it's KWY.

_Wait a second. WHO?_

Yes, yes, fans of Partners In Fanfic, you have seen works from EAJP for a looooong time now.

_Yeah! She's AWESOME. _

_A_nd only a little bit from me.

_Okay...BUT WHO ARE YOU?_

Well honestly, I've been working at my family's restaurant (unwillingly) and it's been rather stressful. I have to deal with rude people all the time, and then add in my parents...and I'm just about ready to massacre someone. It's been tiring. I never have time to write anymore and when I do, I'm just too tired to do anything but try to relax. (In my house, that's quite the feat.)

_EAJP here. I'm going to keep this short since I only edited this. It was good to be back to doing the author/beta gig with KWY again. She's a great writer when she sets her mind to it...not to mention it felt good to play editor for awhile._

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**A Betraying Realization**

-a one-shot by KWY-

_"When I find Red John, I'm going to carve him up and watch him bleed..." -Patrick Jane, The Mentalist_

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If there was one thing Jane was especially good at, it was constantly reminding Lisbon and the team that it was he who would one day bring Red John to justice – by way of murdering the man himself. And in return, Lisbon made sure to remind Jane that if he dared do so – and she prayed and hoped fervently whenever Red John came up that he wouldn't – that she would personally arrest him and place him behind bars. In jail was where Red John was supposed to be, not dead by the hands of one Patrick Jane.

Much to her frustration and disappointment, the blond consultant rarely, if ever, displayed any signs of ever changing his mind.

Despite it all, there was always something nagging at Jane, a voice whispering in his ear that lurked in the deeper, darker parts of his subconscious, telling him that he would never be able to kill a man willingly, murderer or not. And while he ignored it most of the time, his heart ached just knowing it was true. He would never be able to avenge his dead family, never repay for his own crimes, and never bring true justice around.

On top of it all, contrary to popular belief, Jane rarely woke up sweating and trembling at the sights of his slaughtered wife and daughter – at least not anymore. Guiltily, he'd confessed to himself and to the gravestones of his dead family that he had realized several times over that the team had slowly begun to replace them as 'family'. Even more guiltily, he'd tell them he just couldn't kill Red John.

It wasn't just that he wasn't a murderer, he just couldn't kill – Hardy being the only exception, and it had been to protect Lisbon. Even so, the incident had shaken him up badly – much too badly for his liking. When Jane saw Hardy fall to the ground and breathe his last breaths, the realization that he had taken someone's life right out from under him hit him hard, and he knew he would never be able to do it again.

Sometimes though, as he sat on the grass of the cemetery, he could swear that past the gleaming surface of the headstones, a soft murmuring could be heard in the wind. '...don't kill...you don't have to...'

When he did wake up sweating, trembling – and more often than not, dry heaving – it was due to the image of his own two hands, red and dripping with blood from the body that he had slowly suffocated to death and then proceeded to carve up. It was that nightmare that haunted him every night and every time he felt the urge to kill Red John. Waking up, Jane never failed to visit his bathroom sink, scrubbing and rubbing at his hands until they were raw, trembling all the while as he tried to forget the feeling of the warm, wet, slippery flesh between his hands practically still pulsing with life and the sickening ease of the knife he had used had cut through skin.

The nightmares only confirmed it more and more each time. Jane would never be able to kill Red John and truly mean it – not in the way Red John killed his family. Not the way he enjoyed it, never. But Lisbon didn't need to know that. For now, it was better to keep things the way they were.

So more out of tradition, habit, and vanity than anything else, Jane continued to remind and repeat to Lisbon, "When I find Red John, I'm going to carve him up and watch him bleed. I'll make him suffer like he made my family suffer." But he knew he never would – and he suspected that eventually Lisbon would come to realize that too.

In fact, he hoped with every fiber of his being that she would come to realize it. The look she gave him every time he confessed his murderous thoughts was enough to make him tell her his realization on the spot. He hated to know that he was disappointing her, disappointing a woman who obviously cared so much for him. But acknowledging aloud the fact that he could not bring himself to truly avenge his family's murder was a betrayal that he could not commit – not yet, not until the time came.

So when the day would come that Red John finally makes a fatal mistake and find himself cornered, Jane would make sure to keep off the battlefield where shots would constantly be fired and bullets would whizz about. And when Red John finally finds himself hurting too much to go on fighting, Jane would go out of his way to keep away from the man, at least a good twenty feet and close to Lisbon's side where he could safely observe the arrest without the fear of suddenly living out his nightmares. And then maybe he would tell Lisbon just how long he had known he would have never been able to make the nightmare come true.

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A/N: A short little one-shot on Jane's 'true' position on killing Red John. Killing Hardy was an accident and the way he had so quickly throw away that gun made me realize that perhaps Jane really couldn't do it. Kill Red John that is.

EAJP came up with the title. If you think about it, it really does fit. (And on the side note of thinking, if you squint a little, there's some Jisbon.)

-KWY

Now remember. Reviews are like the cookies you get for going to the dark side. But only...they're for me. =3


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